Lui House / D’Arcy Jones Architecture

Text by D’Arcy Jones: This project is located in Vancouver’s traditional RS-5 zone, where a house’s street-facing elevation must be inspired by the two houses on each side. But anything goes at the interior and out back. The Lui House enthusiastically embraces this odd and archaic approach to street-making, by taking the best elements of the neighbouring houses and re-assembling them into a muted face that is agreeable enough to not stand out, but atypical enough to suggest a rich inner world.

Throughout, different shapes and materials are pulled apart by 3” at the exterior and 1/2” at the interior. These gaps are proportional to how interiors and exteriors are experienced. Exteriors are mostly experienced from a middle distance, and interiors are experienced up close.

All of the project’s materials have substance and depth. Real brick, real Douglas Fir windows, real cedar shingles and tons of natural light combine to make a domestic world that feels much older than it is.

Lui house is a complex and calm sanctuary for a young family and their inlaws, that takes full advantage of its open mature garden. Even on a rainy day this house glows inside, in sculpted contrast with deep oak woodwork inside and the verdant green landscape outside.